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Geocache Description:

(This is version 2.1 of this cache, with the same waypoints as 2.0, but a better location for the final.)

The coordinates above are bogus. You can however, use them to park when you find the information for the first waypoint.

This cache will take you on a tour of three of Milwaukee's historic breweries, all located near the the route of the historic Yellowstone Trail, and all close together in Milwaukee. If following the Yellowstone Trail thru Milwaukee, there are a couple of routes. The easiest and most interesting is to go north on 32 from South Milwaukee, to Wisconsin Avenue, then north on 12th street then northwest on 145.

The first stop will take you to the office of the Blatz Brewing Company at:

43.02.721
87.54.509

The Blatz buildings have been restored, and you can see the factory building on the west side of street restored into upscale apartments. The coordinates above take you to the Blatz office, a building labeled as "The Beer Barons," which is now used by the MSOE.

The Blatz Brewing Company was the first to do many important things among Wisconsin's breweries. Blatz was the first Milwaukee brewery that marketed beer nationally, and was the first to have its own bottling plant onsite. Blatz was also the first of Milwaukee's big four breweries (Blatz, Schlitz, Pabst and Miller) to fall victim to hard times, succumbing to pressure from larger competitors. Blatz brewed beer in Milwaukee for 108 years until its demise in 1959.

More information on the history of Blatz and great pictures can be found at:
(visit link)

The second location to visit is the office of the Pabst Brewery, located at:

43.02.750
87.55.345

Interestingly, the entire Pabst complex is still standing, but totally abandoned. It has never been renovated, as so many urban buildings have been, until this year. Until the winter of 2007, it was possible to drive right up to the abandoned buildings, but that is no longer possible due to construction. The entire complex is being renovated, and the coordinates above take you to the public road, just outside of the security gate to the construction zone. There is no need to go beyond the fence, and you can still see some of the historic buildings from the street, though not nearly as well as in the past.

The Pabst Brewing Compny Historic District is a designated historic landmark. The company was founded by Jacob Best, and grew to become Milwaukee's largest brewery by 1868, and the nation's largest by 1874. It remained the nation's largest brewery until 1946, and Pabst Blue Ribbon was my father's choice of brew until the company went out of business.

The third brewery to visit is the Joseph Schlitz Brewery near Chestnut Street. The coordinates below take you to on street parking, near the Libiamo Brew Pub, and you can see a lot of the historic buildings from this parking area. The Libiamo is located in the historic Schlitz Brewery Building and offers Italian cuisine, and is in the former Schlitz hospitality center, complete with wooden beamed ceilings and bottle glass windows, and is worth a visit.

The great Chicago Fire of 1871 led to Milwaukee becoming famous for brewing beer. The devastation of the fire included the destruction of 19 breweries in Chicago, and tainted the water reservoirs, wells, rivers, and even Lake Michigan. Quick to react, Joseph Schlitz knew survivors of the Chicago Fire would be thirsty. Therefore, he shipped all the beer he could to Chicago, and Chicago folks quickly bonded to the Schlitz beer label. That same year, Schlitz adopted the slogan, "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous."

By 1902, Schlitz became the world's largest brewer, and many of the buildings used to brew that beer still stand.

In 1912, Schlitz developed the idea of a brown bottle for beer, a pioneering step intended to prevent light from destroying the quality and stabiltiy of the beer.

You can see many of the remaining Schlitz buildings around the area of Schlitz park, where many of the historic buildings have been renovated. Park at:

43.03.094
87.54.773

After visiting all three brewery buildings, find the final cache at:
43.03.ABC
87.54.DEF

A = The fourth digit of the year the Schlitz Brewhouse was built.
B = The number of marble pillars along the entrance to the Blatz building
C = The second digit of the year the Schlitz Brewhouse was built.
D = Number of windows that are a full circle on the north side of the Schlitz brewhouse
E = (Number of sides to the Blatz trademark) - (Number of colors in Pabst advertising signs)
F = From the legal parking area, there is a large sign in red letters that goes from one Pabst building to another across the street. How many letters are on that sign?

Please note that all 3 brewery buildings are private property, and that the buildings and the information needed to solve for the final location can be seen from the street.

This is one of several caches I have placed along the route of the historic Yellowstone Trail. The trail is a historic motor route that went across Wisconsin from 1918 to 1930. The Wisconsin portion of the Yellowstone Trail is 406 miles long, starting at the state line south of Kenosha and going north, and then west to Hudson. The Wisconsin segment is just a part of one of America’s first transcontinental auto routes, a 3,754-mile long road that started in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts and went to Puget Sound, Washington.

More information on the Yellowstone Trail, including maps can be found at: (visit link)

I would like to thank Uncle Fun for his assistance in researching the history for this cache, especially for all the information that he found, and sent me related to the Schltz Brewery.

I would also like to thank Team Deejay for suggesting a few better spots for the final for this one, one of which I chose.